Burmese junta restraining aid efforts: MSF

The international aid agency Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF) says Burmese Authorities are preventing its staff in one of the worst hit parts of the country from providing life saving relief.

Bogaley is a district of some 100,000 people where thousands have died and and many more are homeless.

MSF says it has managed to get truckloads of food, relief items and medicines to the district but increasing restraints by the Burmese authorities have meant their team there was unable to provide as much assistance as they could to respond to the enormous need in terms of food and medical care.

The organisation says that although it has managed to land one plane-load of supplies, dozens of visa applications for its technical support staff and coordinators are being delayed at Burmese embassies around the world.

Meanwhile the first US plane of relief supplies has arrived in Burma and the country's main port in the former capital Rangoon has reopened after Cyclone Nargis and will receive a shipment of diesel from Thailand on Wednesday, a Thai official said.

"The Myanmar (Burma) Government told us it has reopened the Thilawa port in Yangon as another channel to receive international humanitarian aid," Thai government spokesman Wichianchot Sukchotrat told reporters in Bangkok.

As many as 100,000 people are feared to have died and the UN humanitarian agency said in a new assessment that between 1.2 million and 1.9 million people were struggling to survive in the aftermath of the storm.

The European Commission has called for an urgent meeting of European Union ministers in charge of humanitarian aid on Tuesday to beef up the EU response to the emergency, the Commission said in a statement.

Louis Michel, commissioner for development and humanitarian aid, intends to travel to the cyclone-hit Asian country immediately after the meeting.

"There, he will meet with the Burmese authorities to discuss the best way forward to bringing international assistance to the affected population," the Commission said.